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Thanks for this very long response! I think this was my favorite line: Take away everything someone has to live for, and he'll find a cause to die for.

I will remember that line, because I think you are absolutely right.



Thanks.

In reply to this comment by kagenin:
>> ^Avokineok:
I live in The Netherlands. Everytime I'm on Videosift, I get a sense of how bad it must be to be an American.
I see some great entertaiment with all the late night shows, but I feel bad for all of you who have to live in a country that has so many people taking everything said at Fox "News" ("Gossip" might be more appropriate) so seriously..
It seriously makes me said and makes me believe Amerika is not the land of opportunities; it's a land where people with a lot of money tell other people what think.


Who do you think were those first pilgrims from Europe were? Puritans - People who wanted nothing more than to lecture others on the poor choices they made. (If you've ever been to a good Renaissance Faire, they're the street actors wearing almost all black, and almost always carrying their bibles with them. Hang around one long enough and you'll want to tell them to go take a long walk off a short pier too, if they're in good character. That's basically how they made everyone else living at the time feel. Look at modern day puritanicals such as Pat Robertson.) The ones who colonized America had enough money to sail half-way around the world, which isn't terribly cheap.

Paying for the sins of our forefathers is something every culture does. Just look at television and video games. Here in the States, you can put some pretty violent imagery on TV and maybe even some drug use in your video games, but holy hell if you show a nipple, or touch on ANYTHING of a sexual nature. Releasing a game in the three major English speaking markets (US, UK, and AU) means subjecting your content to three different review boards, with differing notions about what is good and decent for the consumers of their country. Sex, violence, drug use - the disparity between opinions on what is acceptable for only adults to see, even among countries with common language, can mean what get's a Teen rating by the US's ESRB can get an "Adult Only" in the UK, and even be banned outright unless edited for an Australian market.

Despite all this, I remain hopeful because of the fact that those like ol' Noun-Verb-9/11 Rudy are in the minority. The fact that he's so focused on using terms like "Islamic terrorist," or "islamist" displays a blunt ignorance, and could be interpreted as flat out racism. Let's remember that he put the NYC Emergency Command Center, setup after a failed World Trade Center fertilizer bombing in the 90's, was picked by Rudy to be put in the World Trade Center, a place that had recently been the target of a terrorist attack (by attackers who were brought to justice within the same judicial system that handles our parking tickets - we didn't need the post-9/11 military tribunals then, and we don't really need them now, despite certain anti-American Right-Wingers who lack requisite faith in the system they serve). It's like he refuses to learn from history or something, and unfortunately it's not an uncommon condition among modern conservative talking heads here in the states.

The fact that our president didn't use words like "islamist" or "islamic terrorist" or any permutation thereof is because he understands that the greater threat to our nation is a foreign policy that takes away everything from poor young brown-skinned people living in the cradle of civilization and gives them nowhere to turn to but bombed out countries, crumbling infrastructure, and eager suicide bomber recruiters. Take away everything someone has to live for, and he'll find a cause to die for. Dealing with the symptoms is one thing. End the root cause, and then you have the potential for peace.

Take the issue with rampant piracy around the waters of Somalia. Sure, everyone's talking about the latest tanker to be overtaken, but how many stories have delved into the root cause? The polluted waters that have killed off all the fish in the region? The fish who fed the people on the land? The fish that drove the local economy? All dead. The Indonesian Tsunami caused a tidal wave of wretched filth to wash up ashore, tainting the land and water supplies, causing pestilential illnesses. If you're a poor Somali 20-something with your family boat, and you can't make an honest living with it, what are you going to do? Grab some weapons, recruit a crew of close friends in the same situation you're in, and take your chances on the shipping lanes within striking distance... yeah, that would seem like something someone EXTREMELY desperate would do. It's happening right now. The Somali Government can't do jack, they can barely govern an area the size of my rural hometown. Sure we can bust out the snipers when someone important gets kidnapped, and we can applaud the heroes who put their lives on the life to ensure the safety of others. But that won't stop the next motley crew of fishermen with nowhere else to turn but terrorizing the high seas.

I've only spent about 4 days total in the Netherlands. What I saw was beautiful. Amsterdam was breathtaking, both figuratively and literally - man, those canals can really wreak in the summer . I hope to visit again soon. Didn't get to check out much of the television, but what brief moments I was allowed rest in front of a TV on that trip was pretty cool. A lot of stuff just wouldn't get past the FCC here without some serious fines being levied for sexual content, and that's a damn shame...

But, like I said, I'm still hopeful. Wow, that was long If you made it this far, thanks for reading.